by Tam King-fai
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endeavors. Life is a journey, full of sights and happenings waiting for a
detached writer to observe with his keen eyes.
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214
A Garden of One’s Own
Tears and Laughter (1929)
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naturally often laugh and cry, and I have seen other people laugh and
cry numerous times. I have always managed well at the sight of tears,
be they emotional tears of my own, or the choking tears of others, but
there are several kinds of laughter that strike fear in my heart, to the
point that I do not even dare breathe too loudly when I witness them.
Some of these peculiar kinds of laughter have actually come from my
own mouth. When a most intimate friend utters heartless words as
cold as ice, and what is worse, does not seem to realize that his words
have sent a chill to his listener’s heart, one can only burst out into some
meaningless ha... ha... ha. Under the circumstances, what else can one
do but laugh? This kind of forced laughter may come from realizing
the contradiction between his true character, as revealed in his unfeeling
words, and what we used to think his character to be. Or, we laugh in
order to show that we are not shocked by what he says, and that we
have a life that transcends everything and his words cannot hurt us in
the least. Or....
The fact is, though, that at that moment, we laugh only because
we feel that it would not do not to laugh, and do not have the time
to carefully analyze ourselves. When our hearts are in the grips of
inexpressible pain and we are looking for someone to talk to, a person
whom we respect at other times may dismiss our heart-piercing sadness
with the most frivolous (or even the most despicable) explanation.
Confronted with such a deep gulf between them and us, what else can
we do but lamely turn from tears to laughter?
There are times when, as luck would have it, there is not a single
thing from morning to night that we do not botch up. By evening, we
are tired and full of exasperation at ourselves, and neither regret nor
weeping brings any relief. We can only swallow our tears and laugh a
vacant laugh.
We keep ourselves busy our whole lives, frittering away our
irretrievable time in traveling and pointless socializing. We scheme the
whole day long, but do not know what for. We do everything possible to
prolong our lives, but do not see what is so good about living, and have
never actually enjoyed our lives. In short, it is like living in darkness.
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chuckle at ourselves and as we do, come to feel the boundless sorrow of
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Liang Yuchun
215
our lives? Even assuming that we are indifferent to life and death, our
exasperation at this world and our loathing of human affairs still wriggle
their way in like a poisonous snake, wrapping themselves around us,
and we can truly say that we are tired of everything. It is a pity that we
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expending any great effort to seek death. In this limbo of not living and
not dying, we see waves of sorrow assailing us.
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sighing, there’s nothing to do but break into laughter. But what bitter
laughter! It comes from our own mouths, but when it reaches our ears,
it gives rise to an inexpressible fear in our hearts, perhaps even bringing
forth a ghost-like sneer. The bitter laughter may come from other
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sorrow sweeps over us. At the same time, however, we may tremble all
over in fear. The idiotic laugh of the disappointed, the fawning laugh to
the master of servants who have been scolded, the icy laugh of arrogant
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maids at other people’s wedding feasts, the bitter laugh of people facing
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JMQVO LQNÅK]T _QP ][ 4MN _QP VW WPMZ KPWQKM _M ILUQ LMNMI Ja
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lines from Byron’s masterpiece Don Juan:
Of all tales ’tis the saddest—and more sad,
Because it makes us smile.
I like to recite these two lines again and again when I am down and
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Tears, on the other hand, are an expression of our faith in life.
Because life is to be cherished, and because the past is like a spring gone
by, we shed the clear tears of mourning. If life itself is not worthy of a
glance, then whence would come our feelings of regret? When a middle-
aged woman loses her husband, she howls in grief at the thought that
her son should lose his father so early in life, and that no one will guide
him in the years to come. She cannot help but cry her eyes out, but her
heart harbors vaguely boundless love and hope for her son. But if her
son dies, too, this time she may go through the funeral arrangements
without a word, or burst into uncontrollable laughter because she has
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216
A Garden of One’s Own
grown weary of life and her feeble heart has gone numb.
Whenever I see people cry, whether from the pain of falling out of
love or the sadness of losing loved ones, I always feel that this world is
worth living in. Tears are the ambrosia of life. When I was a small child,
I often felt an inexpressible sadness, and would fabricate unhappy events
in my mind. When I was totally overtaken by these thoughts, tears
would sometimes come before I knew it, and I would feel indescribably
happy. These rootless tears don’t come to me anymore, even if I look for
them.
Is there anyone among those of us with hearts who does not like
watching tragedies? Aristotle was certainly right about catharsis. The
spiritual pain that sits entangled in our hearts is given a chance to untie
itself as we follow a tragic plot unfolding on stage. After we cry, we feel
relieved beyond words, as if our spirits had taken a breath of fresh air,
and our souls suddenly display signs of extraordinary health.
People say that there are tears amid the laughter in Gogol’s works;
in fact, it is precisely because there are invisible tears that his novels can
be so hilarious and exhibit a joy encompassing all aspects of life that
lingers even
after we put the book down. Chinese poetry is never very
moving when it comes to descriptions of delight and pleasure, but it is
particularly poignant on the subjects of sorrow and regret, because those
rueful lines are crystals formed of tears, which at times can provoke
us to shed tears of sympathy. This is why the dethroned Li Yu and the
sentimental Li Yishan remain our favorite writers.
There is no one who loves crying more than passionate maidens and
young men struggling in the sea of love, but their lives are energetic and
colorful, and they do not live in vain. By the time a person gets old, his
zest for life has gradually come to naught, and the well of his tears has
run dry. All that is left of him is a state of mind approaching death that
does not care one way or the other, and the seemingly compassionate
smile that comes in truth from a feeling of utter fatigue with life—the
kind of smile I fear. The Romantic poet Thomas Gray of the eighteenth
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The tear forgot as soon as shed,
The sunshine of the breast.
Only young people can shed tears of passion such as these, for they
disappear with the dreams of youth. When our tears dry, we become
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Liang Yuchun
217
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taint our declining years.
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218
A Garden of One’s Own
On the Road (1929)
Today was an exhilarating autumn day, with a slight drizzle. I was
sitting in a tram, and noticed along the way that almost all of the
clerks in the shops on both sides of the road were listlessly chatting,
reading newspapers, or drinking tea—above all, drinking tea, because
it was indeed growing rather chilly outside. Others were leaning on
the counter, watching the sky. All in all, a leisurely air had suddenly
come to permeate this bustling center of commerce, and the shops
in those tall buildings each seemed to have been transformed into a
recluse’s retreat. Even the shop clerks, who at ordinary times would be
busy putting on smiles for the customers and making money for their
employers, had been given a chance to savor a few leisurely moments
in their lives. They were all going about their business at their own
unhurried pace, as if they were cultured hermits of the past. On the
street, there were also only a few pedestrians. Even the foreigners on
their way to work were smoking pipes on the trams, aimlessly looking
at the advertisements in the newspapers. They had none of their usual
haughtiness, thanks probably to the raincoats they were wearing. I
arrived at the north station, where I changed to the bus to the western
suburbs.
drizzle made it impossible to see anything outside, and all one could
see were the raindrops falling continuously on the window and the tiny
dimples they left scattered on the surface of the river. Water droplets as
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face. Although I was shivering slightly, this baptism by rain had made me
all the more clearheaded. Having stepped into the net of world affairs
and lived a life of mindless tedium, it was unusual for me to feel so alert
and refreshed. I looked at the scenery outside again. There was nothing
quite like the splendor of spring to impress one with its transience, or
the desolation of winter to suggest the world’s impending end. Today,
though, there was only quiet layer upon layer of mist and rain, which
concealed as much as they revealed, making the whole world all the
more beautiful. I could not help murmuring the lines of Jiang Baishi, an
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WN ZIQVJMNWZMI]]UVº1
1
Jiang Baishi, 1155–1221 AD.
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Liang Yuchun
219
Suddenly, I thought of what she2 had said this morning with a
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known that at this very instant, I would be leaning against the window,
admiring the view along the way? Perhaps she was thinking I must be all
frowns, like a prisoner on his way to the execution ground. She would
never have thought that I would be lingering over this autumn scene,
with its leaves not yet wilted but its grass already brown. Sympathy is
hard to come by, and, misplaced though it may be, I don’t turn it down.
That is why I allowed her to feel sorry for the time I spent on the road.
Besides, whenever things go against me and I cannot keep misery from
showing on my face, I can then hide behind my supposed hardship on
the road and stop her from enquiring any further. This way, I don’t have
to tell her the truth, and cause her unnecessary worry.
As a matter of fact, I like people who roam about in this world of
red dust most of all. These days, I have to spend over two hours or so a
day on the road and, though this has already gone on for a few months,
I am not a bit bored by it. I get on the tram every day, and it feels like
the beginning of a honeymoon trip. For the most part, people traveling
on trams and on the road do not know each other, which is why they
don’t need to put on any sort of veneer toward each other, unlike people
who have to keep up appearances in a lecture hall, at a party, or in an
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tend to be all smiles, or at least they have to put up such a front; in a
graveyard, court, hospital, or pharmacy, they are all frowns, their faces
engulfed in wrinkles. In both cases, things are simply too monotonous,
and one feels the mediocrity and blandness of our world.
People on the tram or on the road, however, come in all hues
and types. All you need to do is keep your eyes open and observe
continuously for thirty minutes on the tram, and you will see every
shade of happiness and sorrow and every other sentiment in life on
people’s faces. There you are, sitting quietly in your own seat, and your
fellow passengers allow you without reservation to speculate from their
appearance and behavior about their life stories and present state of
mind. Pedestrians outside the tram will come into your view one by one,
and you can scrutinize them to your heart’s content and compare them
without their ever knowing as they go by you like water in a stream.
2
Mostly likely the author’s wife.
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220
A Garden of One’s Own
Such a procession of ordinary people is certainly much more interesting
than any parade; indeed, it is virtually a parade designed by God, and
as such is of course superior to those colorful playthings we come up
with for our festivals.
One’s mind is most receptive to silent viewing when one is on
the road and it is most able to pick up stimuli from the world outside.
Ordinarily, we tend to have things to do, be they good or wicked, and
our attention naturally is focused on one particular thing. When we
are traveling, however, especially over a long route with which we are
familiar, we can be in a leisurely state of mind before we arrive at our
destination. We are not focused on any particular thing, yet there is
not a single thing that we miss. Amidst the haste of our daily lives, it
is only in such a situation that we can take a good look at the real face
of life. That is why, from whatever angle, the best place to understand
this life of ours is on the road, and traveling in a car, on a boat, and
on a sidewalk can be considered three tickets to the exhibition of life.
It’s a pity that so many people take them as merely three pieces of
wastepaper, and travel down the road of life in vain.
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thousand liº
the famous mountains and rivers and major cities, but I think we can
interpret it in a different way: You can travel back and forth on the same
route thousands of times until you have covered ten thousand li. As long as you really use your eyes, then you qualify as someone who has gained
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needn’t leave his front door, yet knows everything there is to know in the
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the only way for us is to put our feet to the road and see more of the
world.
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not be disturbed by worldly honor or disgrace, misfortunes or blessings,
and our souls will thus gain eternal freedom. It can be seen, therefore,
that all roads, and not only the few decreed by Mr. Russell, lead to
freedom. Worst of all are people who, like devout Buddhists, choose
